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ZEMSKY SOBOR
March 14, 1613. Mikhail Fedorovich and his mother, nun Marfa Ivanovna, receive from the Moscow embassy petitions from the Zemsky Sobor on his election to the kingdom at the walls of the Kostroma Ipatiev Monastery. Miniature from the Book of the Election of the Great Sovereign and Grand Duke Mikhail Feodorovich of All Great Russia to the Highest Throne of the Great Russian Tsardom. 1673
It is in the theoretical part of the Katehon website - Theory, Zemsky Sobor, Empire - that we would expect to find concrete ideas for this new development beyond what has been achieved by Putin. I've already commented on the 'katehon'. The 'Zemsky Sobor' - assembly of the land - was an institution established by Ivan IV ('the Terrible') and subsequently suppressed by Peter I ('the Great'). According to various accounts on the Katehon website it differed from the various councils of the boyars in that the peasantry was represented. It purported to represent the whole people though the introductory account 'About Zemsky Sobor' does introduce the important qualification 'except serfs'. The nineteenth century slavophile, Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov (Katehon, 7th November 2020), rejects with indignation the suggestion that it bore any resemblance to the French Constituent Assembly of 1789:
'It was above all a free act of autocratic power, its prerogative, which naturally followed from the very essence of tsarist autocracy. The Russian tsar is not "the first aristocrat of aristocrats", as in England; not the "first nobleman", as the French kings called themselves at the time (le premier gentilhomme du pays), but the first man of the Russian land, vested, for the good of the land, with the supreme state power. No class concept is associated with it; he is a representative of the universality of the zemstvo and the state. His interests are the interests of the whole people, and the stronger his power, the more it guarantees the masses of the people - the poor, orphans, defenseless - from the predominance of the rich, noble, endowed with all sorts of advantages (including "higher culture"), social classes closer to the throne.'
It had no legislative power and was simply the means by which the Tsar could hear the voice of the people. It was unthinkable that the pre-petrine Tsar would see it as a subversive force:
'They would only open their eyes wide and ask in the most simple-hearted way: “But how can one rule otherwise? Will power decrease from advice? Power will not decrease, but light and truth will arrive, - and light and truth will arrive, so it will be to the king in honor, glory and a greater fortress. This is what our simple-minded kings would say; this was their point of view on their relationship to the land and the people - a point of view canceled by Peter I and replaced by him with the point of view of German absolutism or a police, all-encompassing state mechanism.'
When the Russian monarchy collapsed after the reign of Ivan, resulting in the Polish invasion and the destruction of Moscow, it was restored by a 'Zemsky Sobor' which, out of a rather dizzying array of possible candidates, chose Mikhail Romanov, whose successors would continue to Nicholas II (and included of course the much reviled Peter). It may be some equivalent of the 1613 Zemsky Sobor that the Katehon writers have in mind to establish the succession to Vladimir Putin and more importantly to his system of government. According to Dugin:
'Surkov and in his person the ruling elite begins to introduce the project of “eternal Putinism”, that is, turning the status quo into an endless repetition of the same thing, in a kind of “Groundhog Day”. But it will not be a compromise, but a simulacrum of compromise, not Putin’s lively and sincere patriotism, albeit inconsistent and unsystematic, but his cyborg imitation. The new “Putin”, apparently, in the spirit of the advanced technologies with which the Russian government is raving, is supposed to be printed on a 3D printer.'
But Katehon is vague as to how the new Zemsky Sobor will perform its task. The closest I have found is in an article by Arkady Minakov, Professor in the Voronezh State University and Director of The Сenter for the Study of Conservatism ('Zemshchina', Katehon, 6th January 2021). He concludes what is still mainly a historical account both of the sixteenth/seventeenth century Sobors and the nineteenth century zemstvos:
'Is it possible now the revival of the zemshchina? In fact, this is a question about the possibility of returning Russian civilization to its deepest foundations. It is impossible to stop it, and sooner or later a return to the traditional zemstvo system will become inevitable. The experience of history shows that the initial unit of local self-government (community) should not exceed 2-3 thousand people. Only in such a limited "zemstvo space", where everyone knows everyone, will election work be relatively effective.
'Moreover, the election system in a large country should be phased: universal direct, secret and equal voting will remain only at the level of primary zemstvo associations, and then the zemstvo bodies will build themselves to the top, i.e. community (volost) vowels [sic, machine translation - PB] will elect district (county), district (county) - provincial, provincial - Zemsky Sobor. Of course, all living and competent forces of the country should be represented in these bodies - from church parishes to professional corporations'
It may be noted that this is very similar to the proposals of Alexander Solzhenitsyn who seems to be completely forgotten in these circles, perhaps because he wanted Russia to take a rest from the great historical adventures beloved of Katehon. But he too believed that democracy in the sense of direct elections in which everyone participates, should only operate in small communities where everyone could know everyone. He greatly admired the local community politics he encountered both in Switzerland and North America, arguing that the first task for Russia was to restore the viability of small rural communities.